This blog is intended to go along with Population: An Introduction to Concepts and Issues, by John R. Weeks, published by Cengage Learning. The latest edition is the 12th (it came out in 2015), but this blog is meant to complement any edition of the book by showing the way in which demographic issues are regularly in the news.

If you are a user of my textbook and would like to suggest a blog post idea, please email me at: john.weeks@sdsu.edu

Monday, July 11, 2011

World Population Day 2011

Today is World Population Day and is also the first anniversary of this blog. We are still officially in the countdown to 7 billion people being alive on the planet at the same time, but of course the official counter is only approximate since we are continually trying to get a better handle on data through censuses and vital statistics. In reality, every day is world population day because the population is constantly growing and constantly testing the limits of the earth's resources. A terrible reminder of this is the current drought in Somalia:

The head of the U.N. refugee agency said Sunday that drought-ridden Somalia is the "worst humanitarian disaster" in the world after meeting with refugees who endured unspeakable hardship to reach the world's largest refugee camp.

The Kenyan camp, Dadaab, is overflowing with tens of thousands of newly arrived refugees forced into the camp by the parched landscape in the region where Somalia, Ethiopia and Kenya meet. The World Food Program estimates that 10 million people already need humanitarian aid. The U.N. Children's Fund estimates that more than 2 million children are malnourished and in need of lifesaving action.

Trying to avoid these kinds of situations involves a lot of things, including making it as easy as possible for people to limit their family size, which is the reminder that USAID has put out as its thought for the day (world population day, that is).

About Me

Weeks Population Companion App

The app provides learning objectives and main points for each chapter, along with a quick POPquiz to test knowledge about key population information, and there is also a link to the WeeksPopulation blog.